I understand for many types of races especially half and full marathons the racers are tracked by their gun time and by a chip time.
Why do they use both and why is the gun the official time as it seems (based on my limited knowledge) that it is likely less actuate.
In: Mathematics
The gun time is the official start time of the race.
But on half and full marathons, there are hundreds and even thousands of racers, so, the queue can be really long and only the people that start in the front would start at the gunshot. So, it would be unfair for people that start running behind the queue to pass the starting arch like five minutes later.
That’s why there’s a chip time, the time when you individually pass the starting arch and go to the finish line. This chip time is that amateurs racers use for reference to improve their times because unless you’re an elite athlete, you’d start the race like 300m behind the starting line.
The reason why the gun time is the official time used for statistics and such, is beyond me.
Cheers!
In an open race, professional runners run alongside with amateurs (not for long, because the professional fly past).
Typically, the people who have an actual chance of winning the marathon start in the first wave of people. They get right up to the line when the gun goes off. For them, the chip and gun time would for the most part be negligible.
For everyone else, they start well afterwards. It could be a few minutes before their wave starts. In that case, the chip time is a better indicator of their running time.
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